This is my personal blog. I was Branch Secretary of Lambeth UNISON from 1992 to 2017 and a member of the National Executive Council (NEC) of UNISON, the public service union (www.unison.org.uk) from 2003 to 2017.
I am Chair of Brighton Pavilion Constituency Labour Party and of the Sussex Labour Representation Committee (LRC).
Neither the Labour Party nor UNISON is responsible for the contents of this personal blog. (Nor is my employer!)

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Wednesday, August 01, 2012

Pants still on fire?

Following my blog post a week ago about the persistent failure of national officials to respond to a simple query about a material inaccuracy in the main UNISON leaflet providing information about the proposals for the future of the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS 2014) (http://jonrogers1963.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/pants-on-fire.html?m=1) I would like to be able to tell you that I have received a full and honest response.

Unfortunately I can't.

I would not in any case have been impressed by attempts to dragoon branches and activists into supporting recommendations from "their" Service Group Executives (SGEs) in the current ballot (not least because such attempts contravene UNISON Rule B.2.5 and because - in the case of the Local Government Service Group at least - the ballot is now proceeding in breach of Conference policy).

I am particularly unimpressed to see such an authoritarian over reaction in the context of the mixture of arrogance and incompetence exhibited by the failure to reply to a simple question which I put to national officials on 27 June.

It's a good job I am having a relaxing holiday or I would be quite out of sorts.